Germany joining efforts to destroy Syria's chemical stockpile

PanARMENIAN.Net - Germany is joining international efforts to destroy Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons, the foreign and defense ministries have announced, according to BBC News.

Waste from the destroyed weapons would be burned at a government facility in the town of Muenster, they said.

Germany said it was responding to a request for help from the UN and OPCW, coordinators of the destruction plan.

The first consignment of toxic chemicals left Syria on a Danish ship early this week. It is travelling to Italy, where it will be loaded onto a U.S. Navy ship and shipped to international waters for destruction in a specially created titanium tank on board.

Germany decided, after a request from the UN and the OPCW, it "is prepared to make a substantial contribution to the elimination of Syrian chemical weapons," the foreign and defense ministries said in a joint statement.

"The government is willing and able to destroy in Germany remnants created in the course of irreversibly neutralizing chemical weapons from Syria and which resemble industrial waste."

The statement said the project would be handled by the state-owned company GEKA in Muenster "in full compliance with environmental regulations".

Britain has also offered to help get rid of the waste.

Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons in a deal brokered by the U.S. and Russia last year. It followed international outrage when rockets filled with the nerve agent sarin were fired at three towns in the Ghouta agricultural belt around the Syrian capital, Damascus, on August 21. Hundreds of people were killed in the attacks.

Western powers said only Syrian government forces could have carried out the assault, but President Bashar al-Assad blamed rebel fighters.